


Dead Things

by KeanBlade



Series: Color of Vermilion- AU's of the au color in red. [11]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Dark, Horror, Multi, Tragedy, no beta we die like men, no happy ending, sort of Senju Tobirama/Uchiha Madara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:48:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22167391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeanBlade/pseuds/KeanBlade
Summary: Tobirama has loved Madara ever since he first felt the Uchiha's chakra and he has never dealt well with loosing loved ones
Relationships: Senju Tobirama/Uchiha Madara
Series: Color of Vermilion- AU's of the au color in red. [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1431181
Comments: 62
Kudos: 204





	1. what we leave behind

Tobirama watched it happen as if in slow motion, watched his world implode in front of him (Hashirama didn’t need him, didn’t need a tool that was never good enough. He loved Tobirama, but that’s not always enough). It was stupid and cruel and under handed, the only was this could have happened maybe; after all Madara was one of the two best shinobi in existence, it was only trickery and luck that would allow this to happen. The Hagoromo had tricked the Senju into a battle with the Uchiha and laid in wait, Madara had been returning from a long mission (Tobirama knew that, had felt him leave and return, had felt the exhaustion in his chakra) but wouldn’t leave his clan to fight without him and then Madara was distracted with Hashirama and the Hagoromo struck –

“Madara!!”

Hashirama’s yell was loud in the silent battlefield as the paralyzed shinobi watched, too shocked to do anything (like a sudden eclipse Tobirama thought blankly, the same way the moon would cover the sun and take away all warmth and send all living things into silence). Madara staggered forward and Tobirama started forward as red eyes met red (he couldn’t let Madara fall, he _couldn’t_ ); the sword slipped out of his chest with a slick sucking to loud sound that twisted in Tobirama’s ears as he dove to catch the broader man, Sharingan-red eyes already fading black falling away from Tobirama, no more interested in him in death then he had been in life.

* * *

Izuna didn’t even have air to breath as his brother died, a sword through the heart a too fast death for Izuna to even have a last word (and the Hagoromo did love their poison) with the last piece of his family. The Demon dove forward and Izuna wanted to scream; how dare the Senju defile his brother, couldn’t he see Madara was dead -! But…Tobirama didn’t run Madara through with his sword, didn’t do anything but catch Izuna’s brother and keep him from falling into the mud; the Senju slowly sank into the mud, Madara’s head cushioned on his legs to keep it out of the mud. Izuna wanted to lung forward, wanted to dive fore his brother and wrench him away from the Demon but something…something held him back, something about the way the white head was bowed over Madara and the sword straight spine bent, something in the stillness of the air around them. “Oh Tobi” the voice of the Senju kunoichi he had been fending off to get back to Tobirama was broken with sorrow –

“You killed him”

Tobirama’s voice was a twisted broken thing of shattered words and Izuna recoiled without meaning to ( _Madara_ ) and the kunoichi sucked in a sharp breath. Dark light twisted around the kneeling Senju, chakra boiling and twisting and cold, water vibrated and small stars of light split and reformed in the air. “ _Gods_ no” the woman sounded horrified, she gripped Izuna’s arm in a too tight hold but didn’t take her eyes off her clansman “we have to get everyone back,” “What-?” “ _NOW_ Uchiha, Tobirama is about too -! We need to get back” and there was something so like terror in her eyes that Izuna couldn’t even argue, turning to scream to the clan to pull back as the kunoichi di the same with the Senju, following her as she ran to stand to the side of the Demon close enough to call out to him but a warry distance away. Hashirama was at their side in a second “Touka what’s-?” he asked and she shook her had with a harsh laugh; “You should have payed more attention Hashirama, if you had you might have known that you brother was in love with Madara – has been for years” both Hashirama and Izuna gapped at her but she met Hashirama’s eyes with a broken look “what happened last time someone Tobirama died?” she asked in a very quiet voice (and Izuna couldn’t make sense of it, how could the ice Demon love _anyone_ much less Madara? but she seemed dead serious and Tobirama…there was something wrong with how he was reacting).

There was sound that wasn’t a sound and all three spun to look at Tobirama’s bowed forward over Madara the older man’s dark hair carefully gathered out of he mud (ok, maybe he had loved Izuna’s brother) “Tobi” Hashirama whispered and the the dark light bent as seals washed out from him in a wave of twisted chakra, chakra Izuna knew almost as well as his own turned into something he didn’t understand. Hashirama blanched, looking sick as he stared at the seal, “I know those” he croaked “Touka, he promised me he would never use this again, not after Kawarama” and Touka laugh “As if he cares about that” Izuna didn’t understand. Blood collected, dragged out of where it soaked into the ground, more than Izuna would have there was until he saw a few of the Hagoromo fall, desiccated husks empty of all moisture ( _what-?_ he had never used that -); if collected around Tobirama and filled with dark light until it pulsed like a sick heart in the air and then dropped into the ground. A breathless moment and then the earth churned as if it was water and something was swimming out of it.

A skeletal hand broke through the dirt, too white against the dark earth, and then another and another and another, the bones of the long dead clawing their way out of the depths, darkly pulsing blood a parody of flayed muscles on empty frames. Distantly Izuna head someone throwing up, several someone’s, horror beating back the anguish at the loss of his brother, Madara was dead but now the dead were not. And they weren’t even proper skeletons, Izuna could see that now, see the way that they had been thrown together haphazardly, as if with whatever was on hand, be it human or no. The…. _things_ turned as one, facing the paralyzed Hagoromo, dark light eyes latched on, waiting in wolfish stillness. The first man screamed and one bone-blood-chakra _thing_ exploded forward after him, tearing him down in a way that was unmistakably human – no animal kills like that, no animal tears apart a body like that with cruel, _malicious_ intent (make you _hurt_ with no other reason, not for threat, not for food, just pain). The other things followed in a wave of horrors, each tearing down a fleeing man indiscriminately, caring not for which shinobi it was that had actually struck Madara down; the whole clan was going to die, it didn’t matter which one specifically did it.

By the time the horrors had reduced the Hagoromo to pulped meat Tobirama was slumped over Madara, clearly exhausted- he didn’t have his brothers inexhaustible well of chakra. And all Izuna could think as the things slumped to the ground one at a time in disgusting splashing sounds was that he never wanted to be at war with the Senju again.


	2. lay to rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In another life Madara fell in love with Tobirama, easily, quickly, like gravity, like fate. This is not that world and is perhaps not better for it; Madara lived here never knowing love as an Uchiha should, lived with an empty hole in his heart he never understood and a grief he never could let go

Izuna watched as Tobirama painted the seals on the floor, the dark circles under his eyes stark against skin even more pale than it should have been; Tobirama worked too hard, either at the tower pulling the peace and village out of old papers and dreams with hands worn to the bone, peace for a people that feared him and watched him with terror, peace for a people that crossed the road when they saw him and never looked at his face for memory of the horror of his grief. Izuna no longer feared Tobirama that way, not really; no he feared the man’s senseless dedication, loving as strong as painful as any Uchiha but with a mind unrivaled in the world. “You remember the plan?” Tobirama’s voice, horse and rasping startled him out of his thoughts “Madara has been in a coma, we kept it quiet incase there were any Hagoromo looking for vengeance and he has just woken up. When he did I left the village, you and Hashirama banished me so that I couldn’t hurt Madara with my obsession” Izuna swallowed hard in a dry throat “I remember”.

Tobirama gave something that might have been a tiny smile once but was nothing like it now, still there was something easier now, a weight lifted off him that Izuna had never seen before; gods but Izuna could see it again, as he had in Tobirama’s reams of old paper, a man that his brother could have loved beyond belief. Madara would have _adored_ Tobirama, would have doted on and worshiped Tobirama, would have found in him someone that was his match and equal and now – “Ready. Stand back” Tobirama’s voice was already far away and Izuna withdrew farther from the seal, unable to think of anything to say in the face of this; there should be something, some hope or comfort he could give this lovely brokenhearted man and yet…

Tobirama’s chakra slipped out, gentle and smooth and shinning as it sank into the seal; a rush of air into a place Izuna didn’t understand and _something_ , something gentle and comforting stepped into being ( _shikigami_ ). Tobirama’s lips moved but Izuna couldn’t hear his words, the kami looked at him for a long moment and for one revelatory moment Izuna could feel the love that Tobirama held for Madara; it was like looking at the Pure Lands for one perfect glimpse. The Shikigami nodded and the power of the seal shifted, twisting and blurring until _Madara_ was lying on the stone floor, whole and hale as he had ever been in life; Izuna held himself back form running to his brother only by a thread, Madara wasn’t back yet, not until the seal died. (“ ** _You will never know him, he will never find you no matter how the wheel turns, you give up every chance you ever had_** _” Tobirama laughed around the split in his ice heart “I never had a chance anyway, why would he love me? What protection I can give him in this life and the next and the next is enough.” “ **If he die you shall trade your life for his, in every life, in any life** ” “Yes”_)

Madara drew in a sudden breath and Izuna’s eyes fastened on his brother missed entirely the moment of Tobirama’s death, only remembering his promise to witness the albino’s death in time to see the seal fade out of existence and the empty floor where he had knelt. Madara groaned and Izuna darted to his side, shoving aside thoughts of the Daemon as he wept in joy over his brother’s return.

* * *

Izuna looked at the papers he had collected, a life’s worth of work most of it already used, old papers covered in the heart of a dead man and took a deep breath. This was all of it, all that Tobirama had written, all that was left of him in a village that would never remember him name as anything other than the man the summoned Horrors (they had already forgot _why_ he had done it) and maybe it would destroy his karma but Izuna would never make it more than that (never let his brother _know_ Tobirama and love him). He had been the only one that talked to Tobirama by the end, the others all driven away out of confusion, and helplessness, and lingering fear; if there was anyone that could have brought Tobirama's contribution to light it was Izuna and he knew he never would. It was a tiny breath; the smallest flame was all that was needed to kill Tobirama in the end (a man only dies when he is forgotten).

“Izuna?” the younger Uchiha looked up at the sound of his brother’s voice, the flames burning out into ash and nothing more. “It’s dinner time” Izuna smiled and stood, walking away “Coming”.

An errant breeze blew forgotten ash to the floor, mixing with the dust and dirt.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I write fast and don't edit much- this is a place for me to not have to worry too much about perfection and just enjoy it- so things can be mangled at times. (I've got a wonky brain that can't see symbols as well, so I frequently can't even see mistakes) That's not something that's likely to change any time soon, so if imperfect writing puts you off this probably isn't for you


End file.
